TITLE: Changes forced by the pandemic
QUESTION [51 upvotes]: The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our work-lives in ways few of us could have anticipated. These exceptional circumstances have forced each one of us and each one of our institutions to adapt, sometimes in creative ways. I would like to compile a list of those changes and adaptations at all levels of the mathematical ecosystem (all the way from the lives of math undergrads to the working of national funding bodies).
For each entry, please discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the new setup, compared to the previous way of doing things. Be as specific as possible.
Where relevant, please discuss issues of accessibility of events/resources to people who would otherwise have less access to them, and issues of climate change (less traveling means fewer emissions).

REPLY [6 votes]: Interactive virtual poster sessions
In this video, Joel Rosenfeld conpares his experience at two different online conferences.
► He describes the fist conference as disappointing because he wasn't able to establish any of the connections that he had hoped to be able to establish through the workshop. In his words:

Speakers come, give their talk, and then "poof", they're gone.

► He then proceeds to discuss another online conference that he attended, with special attention to a certain poster session that was organised in a particularly creative way. He calls it "that spatial chat thing" (I don't know the official name). It's really hard to describe the setup using words, so I won't describe it here${}^\dagger$ and thus force you to you watch Joel Rosenfeld's video.
He says:

I initially thought that this virtual setting was absolutely ludicrous.

But later, he says:

It turned out to be a lot closer to a regular poster session than I had anticipated. Being able to isolate yourself from the rest of the room and talk to somebody made a huge difference as far as having one-on-one conversations.

And finally:

Honestly, it was surprisingly effective. [...] At first, I thought this was a circus. [...] It was better than most of the other conferences I've been to. [...] This added a whole degree of interactivity and engagement that I didn't really think was going to be possible.


${}^\dagger$If someone could edit my answer to include the official name of "that spatial chat thing", it would be great.